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| Nomenclature | |
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ˁApiru (ʕprw)[1]
in hieroglyphs
The earliest written sources refer to Biblical Hebrew by the name of the land in which it was spoken: שפת כנען 'the language of Canaan' (see Isaiah 19:18).[2] The Hebrew Bible also shows that the language was called יהודית 'Judaean, Judahite' (see, for example, 2 Kings 18:26,28).[2] In the Hellenistic period Greek writings use the names Hebraios, Hebraïsti (Josephus, Antiquities I, 1:2, etc.), and in Mishnaic Hebrew we find עברית 'Hebrew' and לשון עברית 'Hebrew language' (Mishnah Gittin 9:8, etc.).[2] The origin of this term is obscure; suggested origins include the Biblical Eber, the ethnonyms Ḫabiru, Ḫapiru, and ˁApiru found in sources from Egypt and the near east, and a derivation from the root עבר 'to pass' alluding to crossing over the Jordan river.[2][3] Jews also began referring to Hebrew as לשון הקדש 'the holy tongue' in Mishnaic Hebrew.[2]
The term Classical Hebrew may include all pre-medieval dialects of Hebrew, including Mishnaic Hebrew, or it may be limited to Hebrew contemporaneous with the Hebrew Bible. The term Biblical Hebrew refers to pre-Mishnaic dialects (sometimes excluding Dead Sea Scroll Hebrew). The term 'Biblical Hebrew' may or may not include extra-Biblical texts, such as inscriptions (e.g. the Siloam inscription), and generally also includes later vocalization traditions for the Hebrew Bible's consonantal text, most commonly the early-medieval Tiberian vocalization.
[edit] Tags:Siloam Inscription,Mishnaic Hebrew,Hebrew,Hebrew Language,Canaan,Jordan River,Hebrew Bible,Consonantal,Apiru,Hieroglyphs,Eber,Ethnonyms,Ḫabiru,Tiberian Vocalization,B,D,He,H,W,Z,J,K,L,M,N,S, | |
| History | |
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History of the Hebrew language
Biblical Hebrew
Mishnaic Hebrew
Medieval Hebrew
Ashkenazi Hebrew
Sephardi Hebrew
Yemenite Hebrew
Hebrew Language Revival
Modern Hebrew
Coin issued during the Bar-Kokhba revolt. Paleo-Hebrew text reads שמעון ("Simeon") on front and לחרות ירושלם ("for the freedom of Jerusalem") on back.
The archeological record for the prehistory of Biblical Hebrew is far more complete than the record of Biblical Hebrew itself.[4] Early Northwest Semitic (ENWS) materials are attested from 2350 BC to 1200 BC, the end of the Bronze Age.[4] The Northwest Semitic languages, including Hebrew, differentiated noticeably during the Iron Age (1200–540 BC), although in its earliest stages Biblical Hebrew was not highly differentiated from Ugaritic and Amarna Canaanite.[5]
Hebrew developed during the latter half of the second millennium BC between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, an area known as Canaan.[2] The Israelite tribes established a kingdom in Canaan at the beginning of the first millennium BC, which later split into the kingdom of Israel in the north and the kingdom of Judah in the south after a dispute of succession.[6] The earliest Hebrew writing yet discovered was found at Khirbet Qeiyafa and dates to the 10th century BC.[7][8]
The kingdom of Israel was destroyed by the Assyrians in 722 BC.[6] The kingdom of Judah was conquered by the Babylonians in 586 BC, its higher classes exiled and the first Temple destroyed.[6][9] Later the Persians made Judah a province and permitted Jewish exiles to return and rebuild the Temple.[6] In this period of turmoil, the Hebrews were greatly influenced by Aramaic. Aramaic became the common language in the north, in Galilee and Samaria.[9] Hebrew remained in use in Judah; however the returning exiles brought back Aramaic influence, and Aramaic was used for communicating with other ethnic groups during the Persian period.[9] Alexander conquered Judah in 332 BC, beginning the period of Hellenistic (Greek) domination.[9] During the Hellenistic period Judea became independent under the Hasmoneans, but later the Romans ended their independence, making Herod the Great their governor.[6] One Jewish revolt against the Romans led to the destruction of the Second Temple in AD 70 , and the second Bar-Kochba revolt in AD 132-135 led to the departure of the Jewish population of Judea.[6]
Biblical Hebrew after the Second Temple period evolved into Mishnaic Hebrew, which ceased being spoken and developed into a literary language around AD 200.[10] Hebrew continued to be used as a literary and liturgical language in the form of Medieval Hebrew, and Hebrew began a revival process in the 19th century, culminating in Modern Hebrew becoming the official language of the State of Israel. Currently, Classical Hebrew is generally taught in public schools in Israel, and Biblical Hebrew forms are sometimes used in Modern Hebrew literature, much as archaic and Biblical constructions are used in Modern English literature. Since Modern Hebrew contains many Biblical elements, Biblical Hebrew is fairly intelligible to Modern Hebrew speakers.[11]
The primary source of Biblical Hebrew material is the Hebrew Bible.[5][12] Biblical Hebrew is meagerly attested from epigraphic materials, and the Hebrew in these materials differs little from the variety of Hebrew in the Hebrew Bible.[5][12] The damp climate of Palestine caused the rapid deterioration of papyrus and parchment documents, in contrast to the dry environment of Egypt, and the survival of the Hebrew Bible may be attributed to scribal determination in preserving the text through copying.[13] No manuscript of the Hebrew Bible dates to before 400 BC, although two silver rolls (the Ketef Hinnom scrolls) from the 7th or 6th century BC show a version of the priestly blessing.[13][14][15] Vowel and cantillation marks were added to the older consonantal layer of the Bible between 600 CE and the beginning of the 10th century.[16][nb 1] The scholars who preserved the pronunciation of the Bibles were known as the Masoretes. The most well-preserved system that developed, and the only still used is the Tiberian vocalization, but both Babylonian and Palestinian vocalizations are also attested.[16] The Palestinian system was preserved mainly in piyyutim, which contain Biblical quotations.[16]
[edit] Tags:Kingdom Of Judah,Liturgical Language,Semitic,Northwest Semitic,Canaanite,Hebrew Text,Kingdom Of Israel,Paleo-hebrew,Medieval Hebrew,Ashkenazi Hebrew,Sephardi Hebrew,Yemenite Hebrew,Hebrew Language Revival,Modern Hebrew,Bar-kokhba Revolt,Simeon,Bronze Age,Ugaritic,Amarna Canaanite,Mediterranean Sea,First Temple,Galilee,Samaria,Hasmoneans,Herod The Great,Bar-kochba Revolt,State Of Israel,Israel,Epigraphic,Priestly Blessing,Masoretes,Piyyutim,Semitic Languages,Northwest,Semitic Language,Cantillation, | |
| Classification | |
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See also: Semitic languages, Northwest Semitic languages, and Canaanite languages
This article contains IPA phonetic symbols. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters.
Reflexes of Proto-Semitic consonants in Hebrew[17][18]
Proto-Semitic
Hebrew
Examples
Hebrew
Aramaic
meaning
*/ð/
*/z/1
זהב
דהב
'gold'
*/z/1
מאזנים
מאזניא
'scale'
*/θ/
*/ʃ/1
שנה
שנה
'year'
*/ʃ/1
שנה
תנה
'repeat'
*/θʼ/
*/sʼ/1
צל
טלה
'shadow'
*/ɬʼ/
ארץ
ארע
'land'
*/sʼ/1
צרח
צרח
'shout'
possibly affricated
Biblical Hebrew is a Northwest Semitic language of the Canaanite subgroup.[19][20]
As a Northwest Semitic language, Hebrew shows the shift of initial */w/ to /j/, a similar independent pronoun system to the other Northwest Semitic languages (with third person pronouns never containing /ʃ/), some archaic forms, such as /naħnu/ 'we', first person singular pronominal suffix -i or -ya, and /n/ commonly preceding pronominal suffixes.[21] Case endings are found in Northwest Semitic languages in the second millennium BC, but disappear almost totally afterwards.[21] Mimation is absent in singular nouns, but is often retained in the plural, as in Hebrew.[21]
The Northwest Semitic languages formed a dialect continuum in the Iron Age (1200-540 BC), with Phoenician and Aramaic on each extreme.[21][22] Hebrew is classed with Phoenician in the Canaanite subgroup, which also includes Ammonite, Edomite, and Moabite.[21] Moabite might be considered a Hebrew dialect, though it possessed distinctive Aramaic features.[22][23] Although Ugaritic shows a large degree of affinity to Hebrew in poetic structure, vocabulary, and some grammar, it lacks some Canaanite features (like the Canaanite shift and the shift */ð/ > /z/), and its similarities are more likely a result of either contact or preserved archaism.[24]
Hebrew underwent the Canaanite vowel shift, where Proto-Semitic /aː/ tended to shift to /oː/, perhaps when stressed.[21][25] Hebrew also shares with the Canaanite languages the shifts */ð/ > /z/, */θʼ/ and */ɬʼ/ > /sʼ/, widespread reduction of diphthongs, loss of intervocalic /h/, and assimilation of non-final /n/ to the following consonant.[21] Typical Canaanite words in Hebrew include: גג 'roof' שלחן 'table' חלון 'window' ישן 'old (thing)' זקן 'old (person)' גרש 'expel'.[21] Morphological Canaanite features in Hebrew include the masculine plural marker -ם, first person singular pronoun אנכי, interrogative pronoun מי, definite article ה- (appearing in the first millennium BC), and third person plural feminine verbal marker ת-.[21]
As Biblical Hebrew evolved from Proto-Semitic it underwent a number of consonantal mergers, parallel with those in other Canaanite languages.[17][21][26][nb 2] There is no evidence that these mergers occurred after the adaptation of the Hebrew alphabet.[27][nb 3]
[edit] Tags:Hebrew Alphabet,Ipa,Unicode,Rendering Support,Question Marks, Boxes, Or Other Symbols,Vocalic,Person,Mimation,Ammonite,Edomite,Moabite,Canaanite Shift,Proto-semitic, | |
| Eras | |
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Biblical Hebrew as preserved in the Hebrew Bible is composed of multiple linguistic layers. The consonantal skeleton of the text is the most ancient, while the vocalization and cantillation are later additions reflecting a later stage of the language.[12] These additions were added after AD 600; Hebrew had already ceased being used as a spoken language around AD 200.[28] Biblical Hebrew as reflected in the consonantal text of the Bible and in extra-Biblical inscriptions may be subdivided by era.
The oldest form of Biblical Hebrew, Archaic Hebrew, is found in poetic sections of the Bible and inscriptions dating to around 1000 BC, the early Monarchic Period.[29][30] This stage is also known as Old Hebrew or Paleo-Hebrew, and is the oldest stratum of Biblical Hebrew. The oldest known artifacts of Archaic Biblical Hebrew are various sections of the Tanakh, including the Song of Moses (Exodus 15) and the Song of Deborah (Judges 5).[31] Biblical poetry uses a number of distinct lexical items, for example חזה for prose ראה 'see', כביר for גדול 'great'.[32] Some have cognates in other Northwest Semitic languages, for example פעל 'do' and חָרוּץ 'gold' which are common in Canaanite and Ugaritic.[33] Grammatical differences include the use of זה, זוֹ, and זוּ as relative particles, negative בל, and various differences in verbal and pronominal morphology and syntax.[34]
Later pre-exilic Biblical Hebrew (such as is found in prose sections of the Pentateuch, Nevi'im, and some Ketuvim) is known as 'Biblical Hebrew proper' or 'Standard Biblical Hebrew'.[29][30] This is dated to the period from the 8th to the 6th century BC. In contrast to Archaic Hebrew, Standard Biblical Hebrew is more consistent in using the definite article ה-, the accusative marker את, distinguishing between simple and waw-consecutive verb forms, and in using particles like אשר and כי rather than asyndeton.[35]
Biblical Hebrew from after the Babylonian exile in 587 BC is known as 'Late Biblical Hebrew'.[29][30] Late Biblical Hebrew shows Aramaic influence in phonology, morphology, and lexicon, and this trend is also evident in the later-developed Tiberian vocalization system.[36]
Qumran Hebrew, attested in the Dead Sea Scrolls from ca. 200 BC to AD 70, is a continuation of Late Biblical Hebrew.[30] Qumran Hebrew may be considered an intermediate stage between Biblical Hebrew and Mishnaic Hebrew, though Qumran Hebrew shows its own idiosyncratic dialectal features.[37]
[edit] Tags: | |
| Dialects | |
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Dialect variation in Biblical Hebrew is attested to by the well-known shibboleth incident of Judges 12:6, where Jephthah's forces from Gilead caught Ephraimites trying to cross the Jordan river by making them say שִׁבֹּ֤לֶת ('ear of corn')[38] The Ephraimites' identity was given away by their pronunciation: סִבֹּ֤לֶת.[38] The apparent conclusion is that the Ephraimite dialect had /s/ for standard /ʃ/.[38] As an alternative explanation, it has been suggested that the proto-Semitic phoneme */θ/, which shifted to /ʃ/ in most dialects of Hebrew, may have been retained in the Hebrew of the trans-Jordan.[39][nb 4] However, there is evidence that the word שִׁבֹּ֤לֶת had initial consonant */ʃ/ in proto-Semitic, contradicting this theory.[38]
Hebrew as spoken in the northern Kingdom of Israel, known also as Israelian Hebrew, shows phonological, lexical, and grammatical differences from southern dialects.[40] The Northern dialect spoken around Samaria shows more frequent simplification of /aj/ into /eː/ as attested by the Samaria ostraca (8th century BC), e.g. ין (= /jeːn/ < */jajn/ 'wine'), while the Southern (Judean) dialect instead adds in an epenthetic vowel /i/, added halfway through the first millennium BC (יין = /ˈjajin/).[21][nb 5][41] The word play in Amos 8:1–2 כְּלוּב קַ֫יִץ... בָּא הַקֵּץ may reflect this: given that Amos was addressing the population of the Northern Kingdom, the vocalization *קֵיץ would be more forceful.[41] Other possible Northern features include use of שֶ- 'who, that', forms like דֵעָה 'to know' rather than דַעַת and infinitives of certain verbs of the form עֲשוֹ 'to do' rather than עֲשוֹת.[42] The Samaria ostraca also show שת for standard שנה 'year', as in Aramaic.[42]
The guttural phonemes /ħ ʕ h ʔ/ merged over time in some dialects.[43] This was found in Dead Sea Scroll Hebrew, but Jerome attested to the existence of contemporaneous Hebrew speakers who still distinguished pharyngeals.[43] Samaritan Hebrew also shows a general attrition of these phonemes, though /ʕ ħ/ are occasionally preserved as [ʕ].[44]
[edit] Tags:Pharyngeal, | |
| Orthography | |
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Main article: Biblical Hebrew orthography
Name
Paleo-Hebrew
Block
Samaritan
Phonetic
value
(Pre-Exilic)[45][46]
(IPA)
Aleph
א
ࠀ
[ʔ], ∅
Beth
ב
ࠁ
[b]
Gimel
ג
ࠂ
[ɡ]
Daleth
ד
ࠃ
[d]
He
ה
ࠄ
[h], ∅
Waw
ו
ࠅ
[w], ∅
Zayin
ז
ࠆ
[z]
Heth
ח
ࠇ
[ħ], [χ][47][48]
Teth
ט
ࠈ
[tʼ][47][48]
Yodh
י
ࠉ
[j], ∅
Kaph
כ, ך
ࠊ
[k]
Lamedh
ל
ࠋ
[l]
Mem
מ, ם
ࠌ
[m]
Nun
נ, ן
ࠍ
[n]
Samekh
ס
ࠎ
[s]
Ayin
ע
ࠏ
[ʕ], [ʁ][47][48]
Pe
פ, ף
ࠐ
[p]
Sadhe
צ, ץ
ࠑ
[sʼ][47][48]
Qoph
ק
ࠒ
[q] or [kʼ][47][48]
Resh
ר
ࠓ
[r]
Shin
ש
ࠔ
[ʃ], [ɬ][47][48]
Taw
ת
ࠕ
[t]
The earliest Hebrew writing yet discovered, found at Khirbet Qeiyafa, dates to the 10th century BC.[7] The 15 cm x 16.5 cm (5.9 in x 6.5 in) trapezoid pottery sherd (ostracon) has five lines of text written in ink written in the Proto-Canaanite alphabet (the old form of the Phoenician alphabet).[7][8] The tablet is written from left to right, indicating that Hebrew writing was still in the formative stage.[8]
The Israelite tribes who settled in the land of Israel adopted the Phoenician script around the 12th century BC, as found in the Gezer calender (c. 10th century BC).[49][50] This script developed into the Paleo-Hebrew script in the 10th or 9th centuries BC.[51][52][53] The Paleo-Hebrew alphabet's main differences from from the Phoenician script were "a curving to the left of the dowstrokes in the 'long-legged' letter-signs... the consistent use of a Waw with a concave top, [and an] x-shaped Taw."[51][nb 6] The oldest inscriptions in Paleo-Hebrew script are dated to around the middle of the 9th century BC, the most famous being the Mesha Stele in the Moabite language (which might be considered a dialect of Hebrew).[14][23] The ancient Hebrew script was in continuous use until the early 6th century BC, the end of the First Temple period.[54] In the Second Temple Period the Paleo-Hebrew script gradually fell into disuse, and was completely abandoned among the Jews after the failed Bar Kochba revolt.[52][55] The Samaritans retained the ancient Hebrew alphabet, which evolved into the modern Samaritan alphabet.[52][55]
By the end of the First Temple period the Aramaic script, a separate descendant of the Phoenician script, became widespread throughout the region, gradually displacing Paleo-Hebrew.[55] The oldest documents that have been found in the Aramaic Script are fragments of the scrolls of Exodus, Samuel, and Jeremiah found among the Dead Sea scrolls, dating from the late 3rd and early 2nd centuries BC.[56] It seems that the earlier Biblical books were originally written in the Paleo-Hebrew script, while the later books were written directly in the later Assyrian script.[52] Some Qumran texts written in the Assyrian script write the tetragrammaton and some other divine names in Paleo-Hebrew, and this practice is also found in several Jewish-Greek Biblical translations.[52][nb 7] While spoken Hebrew continued to evolve into Mishnaic Hebrew, the scribal tradition for writing the Torah gradually developed.[57] A number of regional "book-hand" styles developed for the purpo Tags:Paleo-hebrew Alphabet,Samaritans,Aramaic Script, | |
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